KPMG: Creative industries key to UK’s long-term competitiveness
December 12, 2012
By Colin Mann
David Elms, Head of Media at KPMG, a speaker at the Westminster Media Forum seminar on ‘The UK’s creative economy – Creating the conditions for growth’, has suggested that more needs to be done to ensure the UK’s creative industries continue their role in driving the nation’s long-term competitiveness and future growth.
“Awareness is growing that the creative industries are one of the key sectors to ensure the UK’s long-term competitiveness and future growth,” he noted prior to the seminar. We believe that a highly successful tech and creative industries sector has the potential to create thousands of jobs and will help underpin the growth of other industries in Britain,” he stated.
“The government has already demonstrated its commitment to the sector. Real measures have been put in place to foster the long-term growth of the creative industries in the UK. These include the Creative Sector Relief giving tax breaks to businesses in the games, TV and animation industries; cash repayable R&D tax credits and a new Patent Box regime, which means companies will benefit from a 10 per cent tax rate on profits that are generated from the patents they own,” he advised.
“But more needs to be done. The creative industries currently employ about 1.5 million people in the UK and represent 5.1 per cent of the UK’s workforce. They are responsible for about 10.6 per cent of our exports and 2.9 per cent of our GDP. In order to thrive, start-up companies need to be nurtured and supported all the way and the key to attracting new, innovative companies to the UK is to develop a start-up ecosystem that allows these companies to do exactly that,” he declared.
“This is one of the reasons KPMG recently announced plans to set up a dedicated team based in London’s ‘Tech City’ with the aim of supporting and promoting potential high growth companies. Our initiative aims to create another important layer in the UK’s developing start-up ecosystem and we want to play an important part in that process,” he noted.